Afterword and Rant

Afterword

So Dragonoid Chronicles Volume 1 has finally reached its proper conclusion, which also means that we didn’t make it to finals, but that’s surprisingly ok, and I’ll go into detail about that later. For now, let’s cover some of the backstory of this story, haha.

I came up with this idea sometime in 2014 when RWBY was really popular. I just loved the idea of a team of students fighting together against monsters. Gold star to Kya Hon for pointing it out, lol) But yes, Lissandra is Weiss, and Alexis is Yang; at least they were my inspirations. The monsters and Ash’s gimmicks, like Royal Rose, are Devil May Cry-inspired (Gold Star to Armorien). Then again, I was shoving those in your face like Scott and his need to be around Onee-sans.

But obviously, with me starting the idea like 8 years ago, things changed drastically in this version. I mean, most importantly, the story was mostly supposed to take place outside of the school with Squad S going out on adventures, and the society wasn’t supposed to be super advanced. I mean, they use PDAs because I took the idea from Zoey 101, and if you don’t know what show, that is well… I’m getting too old. Though I changed it to focus on the school life because of the prompt while still keeping the heart and soul of my original idea.

Also, sorry to all of my Tuvira fans, but she and the rest of Squad T did not exist in the original concept, as I created her purely because I wanted Ash to meet another squad like his, and I did want a foil for Lissandra. However, I fell in love with Tuvira’s character! Just writing her and doing research for her lines was a blast! Like, I’m not joking when I say a goblin shark is a pretty ugly creature, and I love it every time she calls Ash that because, on one hand, she’s calling him a shark, but on the other hand, she’s saying he’s repulsive. Of course, all in good fun.

Which brings me to the next topic why are all the characters assholes? Well, to me, they aren’t that mean, which says more about myself and the people I’ve been around than it does about you, haha. I simply wanted all the characters to feel real in an exaggerated sense where they each have their own wants and goals while voicing their thoughts. So because Ash is an outsider and he’s sort of our pov character, many of the characters are inherently a dick to him. Not to mention Ash isn’t too nice of a guy in general. (Blame my inner chuunibyou) Though people like Scott and Baron are generally nice due to their upbringing being different from the others as Scott is the only member in squad S without a tragic back story making him very optimistic. Alexis, on the other hand, is a rebel with more issues than Ash but is counterbalanced by Baron’s lack of fight. I’d like to think all of the faculty come off differently, though absorbed in their desires, they all want what’s best for the students. And if they just so happen to believe that getting rid of Ash would be better for the school, then he’s just unlucky. But I do plan to have the teachers grow throughout the story whether they mellow out as Ash improves or put him on the stake once they realize what Ash is.

Now my writing style—Another person got it right, and that being OTK, who really made me jump out of my seat when reading their comment—Simply put, I was going for a blend between Eastern and Western writing styles and tropes. Considering I had read a lot of LNs before writing this and after reading Reincarnated as a Sword Volumes 1 and 2, I decided to emulate that writing style. The series is a really fun ride, not too serious (I have not seen the anime yet), but the writing style is like the definition of a Light Novel. It’s a breeze to read with barely any dialogue tags and mostly left to your imagination to fill in the blanks. And that was what I wanted for the reader. I want you to be able to pick up this book while on like a 15 min work break or ride to school and quickly knock out a chapter or two. A quick laugh or a hype fight that left you in a better mood than when you started. I remember my love for reading with Harry Potter and Percy Jackson, where I could just turn my brain off and enjoy the world without having to be slowed down by gulps Prose. But besides that, I also try to follow the Japanese writing structure of Kishōtenketsu, which is like our 3 act structure, except there is a development phase, so closer to a 4 act structure. Like if you think about it, the story doesn’t really kick off until Chapter 4, when Dr. Torchedgaze and Dr. Kindlemind are trying to get rid of Ash. Everything before this was pretty much just the introduction and development of the various characters. Though I wouldn’t say, one way is better than the other as I know many people who would hate the idea that you could technically cut out a quarter of the story and it would stay the same. Obviously, I’m still working on adapting this writing style for a western audience (not to mention learning more about it myself), but I’d like to think I didn’t do too bad, considering how most of you were positive with the flow of the story.

Alright, here is the topic you’ve all been waiting for: The Artwork and how I got so many? First, I had money saved that I just wanted to burn. Paired with being a sort of turbulent time in my life balancing school, work, love life, and writing. I just needed something to cheer me up, and commissioning artwork did. I mean, I got to see my characters come to life and work with artists who I’ve worked with previously in the Tale of Yuki Uchiha (Which you should definitely check out if you liked Dragonoid Chronicles). It was a lot of fun, and honestly, I can’t wait to do it again once I’ve saved up some more, haha (I was really banking on that 3k bailout from the contest…). Alas, what are you going to do when two of the prompts in the contest are practically slice of life and slice of life but in school. Grumble, Grumble, Grumble. Shōnen is clearly superior. Hmph!

Rant

Jokes aside, I have my gripes with the Honeyfeed contest, just like last year’s, but I’ll share my biggest one since it bothers me that no one has said a word about it. It’s like we’re pretending that we just didn’t see the top novel/top author not even enter finals even though they were on every monthly and weekly since the start of the contest. I don’t even have to say the title because only one story managed to be that relevant. I mean, the author hung out in the discord often, drew their own art, wrote the story, and had a job outside of this, only to lose for some reason we don’t know. (Hint the story is a Rom-Com). This wasn’t even the first time this has happened to this author, as in the first contest, I assume they were disqualified after entering finals due to an arbitrary rule about no advertising, at least from my knowledge. (Even though self-promotion is one of the judging criteria). Yet even while losing, their first story still garnered more views than last year’s contest winners to this day without winning. Even their second story has more views than last year’s contest winners.

Now I know what you’re thinking views in Honeyfeed is a joke. I mean, it’s easily exploitable, and we’ve seen it happen, but they can’t all be fake. Even if they were, I’d feel like an admin would do something about it, like with the other stories that suddenly get 10k views, hop into the weeklies, then die off. Another thing to note is that, yes, they already have a fanbase due to their artwork, so it makes sense that they gather more views than the average person. Now is it fair to the average writer in the contest? Probably not I mean, they already have fans while the rest of us have to get fans, but I don’t think a writer should be punished for having a preexisting fanbase. But If you’ve noticed, there is one thing I haven’t covered: Is the story good enough to be a finalist? From what I read, I’d like to think so but considering some of the other finalists didn’t even follow the rules, I’m not sure that is the issue here. I won’t even mention the novel that was deleted before the judging phase still made it as a finalist or the weird even split of 2 finalist novels being “popular” and then 2 finalist novels being “unpopular.”

And I know no one wants to talk about it because no one wants to be that guy who seems like a hater or is salty that they lost, while the winner can’t say a thing because that could get them disqualified or ruin their chances at the manga deal. But I’ll be damned if you thought I was going to just watch as someone who clearly deserved to have at least a shot at winning gets looked over for some arbitrary reason.

I mean, I can’t even be frustrated with my own loss because I can at least guess why I lost, but what about them. What can they do? Top story for weeks, for months, with comments from people liking their story. It’s an actual Rom-Com in the Rom-Com category, still lost. Followed the posting rules, still lost. So what did they do wrong? The writing just has to be atrocious to still lose after all of that, or maybe they were just unlucky, and the other writers were just better, or maybe they just needed better connections. But I guess all’s fair in a battle, right?

And with that finally off my chest, I’d like to say once more thank you all for reading and supporting Dragonoid Chronicles. It really means a lot to me. Helped me through some tough moments, and I think that’s why I’m not too sad about the loss because I had already won. And it won’t stop here! It might be wishful thinking, but we’ll make it someday.

Though, I may end up deleting Dragonoid Chronicles from Honeyfeed as I had done with Tsukitsune and rewrite it when I have more time than the contest window. However, will I be back for next year’s contest? If there even is one… I’m not too sure. A lot of shady stuff happened last year and this year, so I’m not too sure. But whatever the case may be, The Tale of Yuki Uchiha will still be around. I can assure you that if you liked Dragonoid Chronicles, you’d love my little fanfiction even without watching Naruto. It even got the Seven seal of approval, so you should definitely check it out!

And to all of the finalists, I wish you luck in this battle and the next because there are a lot of winners, but there can only be a chosen 3, so don’t forget to vote! (P.S. I still can’t take my vote back from a misclick. Send help!)